Fact Check: Yunus government’s hollow claim exposed over container handling record at Chattogram port

❐ Special Correspondent

A news of a container handling record being set at Chittagong Port is circulating on the internet. This is being claimed as a success of the Yunus government. But has there actually been any such record? After a little investigation, Subhankar’s blunder was caught, and the cat was out of the bag.

Media reports claim that Chittagong Drydock Limited (CDDL) took over the management of berths 2, 3, 4 and 5 of NCT from July 7. Since then, container handling at NCT has increased significantly. Officials of the company said that efficient management at the ship point, delivery point, appraisal and C&F sheds and gates has accelerated container handling.

Yesterday, August 29, CDDL claimed in a press conference that they have set a new record for container handling in a single day at NCT. They have successfully completed the work of moving 5,019 containers in a single day. This news was widely disseminated by the press wing of Yunus Sarkar in various media outlets.

Interestingly, somewhere in this news, the previous container handling record was cleverly ignored. Let’s do the math.

First, the Chittagong Port Authority is the only agency responsible for publishing information on how many containers are being handled daily. The port authority has so far remained silent against Drydock’s claim of such records.

Port officials claim that the port authorities are keeping quiet about this number after detecting extreme fraud.

It is important to know that all operations including container handling at Chittagong Port are calculated on a daily basis. Their day starts according to the calendar. The date starts from 12.01 am every day to 12.00 am the next day, that is, according to the calendar. All countries in the world follow this rule.

Chittagong Drydock Limited also took over their responsibilities from Saif Power at 12:01 am on July 6. Although they have not signed any agreement with the port yet, everything is going on verbally.

The port’s computer data system is designed as a diary. The daily container movement calculations are also updated on the computer in the same way. How many boxes and containers are loaded or unloaded from which ship is immediately uploaded to the data system.

The data published by the port authority says that on August 28, 4,244 TEUs of import and export containers were handled. Not 5,019 TEUs. So the question is, how did the record of 5,019 TEUs get in here? This is where the trick was actually done by the Yunus government and the dry dock authorities. They did it from 8 am on the 28th to 8 am on August 29th, without calculating the time from 12.01 am.

In other words, they have calculated 24 hours as their own invention, instead of going by the data system. There is no standard or basis for this calculation or record.

It is known that container handling during the night shift at the port is less than during the day. The dry dock authorities have claimed a record for one day combined! Which is completely misleading. If a record number of container handling had occurred in one day, not the dry dock authorities, but the Chittagong Port Authority itself would have called journalists and presented the success to the entire nation. The port has done this several times in the past.

Source: Economic and political analyst Jamil Hasan